Which calculator is best. 1

[JamesBarlow]

I wanted to ask for opinions about calculators.

I currently have an HP48GX, which I have had for many years. It has served me well and I am looking for a new one. I have looked at the HP49G, but I get the feeling that HP is geting out of the high end calculator business. They no longer make a USB connection cable and there are no plans on the horizion for a GX model.

I have also looked at the TI's, especially with the Voyage 200 comming out soon, but I don't have any real experience with them.

A little backgound. I am a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering and am looking for a platform which will allow me to do work in the class room and when I am away from my computer. I know I will not find a "Hand Held Mathematica" machine, but I want to get something good.

Any adive, insight would be appreciated.

 

[ivymike]

hehehe... yeah, and his vehicle had less computing power onboard than my $5000 compact car has.

 

[SnowCrash]

You said, "I know I will not find a "Hand Held Mathematica" machine, but I want to get something good."

Sounds like a design challenge to me. . .

Crashj 'but my HP 25C still works fine' Johnson

 

[bgkms]

slide rule is the mother of calculators, and so is the BEST!

 

[TD2K]

In university I had a old TI that was programmable, TI-52 or something like that (it was the one below the model that had little magnetic cards you could use to store your programs on). I wrote several simple programs (you didn't have many steps allowed so they were all simple), one was to solve matrices for my statics course I remember.

Now that I'm out of University, I rarely use my HP for anything more complicated that the odd trig function and some powers/roots. Anything more complicated goes on a spreadsheet. I have not looked at Mathcad or similar programs but it's something I'd like to.

Just another point of view.

 

Define "best"..... I used a TI-92 for quite some time and I find it very usefull (altough I never found a reason for the Geometry editor) I can honestly say that I was a very good user, I knew my calculator and I loved it, BUT... in class there was a guy with the HP48G and some times (well most of the times) he arrived to the answers faster with his calculator, some times the TI-92 would just keep working for hours before landing a result..... later I found that the algorithms of Hp where different than the ones of TI, making the Hp stronger in most cases then the TI, but any way I kept my TI-92, for me it was better (I never got used to the RPN) so just define what's best for you, for me it was comfort and a big screen ( the TI-92 has the biggest screen of all calculators I've seen )

Regards

 

[dougholmes]

Ah, but the slip stick is only good for so few places of accuracy... I grew addicted to having 10 or more digits showing on calculations starting with only 2 or 3 significant digits in the input data...